5:30 ; d.h

0.02

I draped my coat over the chair Mr. Howell motioned towards and walked to the piano where he was sitting. His legs were on either side of the bench, to which he patted in front of him for me to do the same.

"Step number one: Get to know your pupil." Mr. Howell read officially from the hand book on the piano next to us before cracking a smile. My nerves started to loosen and I was beginning to become more relaxed as the practice started.

"What do you do in your past time?" He quipped.

"Sometimes I just read in my room with music playing in the background." I answered basically.

"Boooring!" His soft voice rang. "Tell me what you really do when you're free."

"Excuse me, but I am deeply offended by such a response, Mr. Howell." I joked. His face quickly got foggy with blush as he chuckled and scratched the back of his neck.

"Anyway, next question." He paused and fumbled with the packet in his hands.

"Kinda personal, do you have any guilty pleasures?"

Immediately my mind went into hyper-drive causing broken laughter to stumble out of my mouth. I recovered quickly and looked back at my teacher. His face held one of confusion and slight hilarity.

"I uh, I don't wanna say." I mumbled.

"Oh, c'mon it can't be that bad!" He countered.

"Mr. Howell there is a reason they call it a guilty pleasure."

"Please tell me, I'm genuinely curious now, Nova."

I sighed heavily. "Fine. My guilty pleasure is that whenever I'm listening to a really slow or sad song and I'm walking on the street or in the hallway or I'm in the car, I act like I'm in a music video, and I always make it really dramatic."

Mr. Howell burst into laughter, clapping his hands in front of him and leaning back. I giggled a little as he came back to reality, wiping a small tear from his eye.

"Well alright, Big Man! Tell me what your guilty pleasure is since you forced me to tell you mine!" I said as I slapped him on the shoulder. He looked back at me and laughed a bit before starting.

"Now this is embarrassing. I can recite the entirety of The Sound of Music from memory." He spoke. I looked at him and chuckled a bit. Y'know, he looks like the guy who would be able to recite every line of The Sound of Music.

"What? Mine's not as funny as yours?" Mr. Howell inquired. "Usually when I tell people that, they laugh until they start tearing up."

My stare lightened and I laughed again, "I don't know what it is, sir, but you just look like the kind of guy who'd be able to do that."

Mr. Howell laughed at my remark and then nodded as he ran his finger over the parchment. I watched his face as he studied the list of questions, his eyebrows knitting together at times.

"This is seriously the worst list of questions I have ever read, wow. Ready for this one? What is your favorite class in school? Oh here's a riveting one, what is your favorite color?" He chuckled a bit at the dumb questions before flipping the page over.

"Science and yellow. To answer those captivating questions." I smiled back.

"Here, this is an actual good one. What is your favorite music, or favorite band?" He looked at me and I seriously was about to blurt the first thing that surfaced in my mind.

Which, in case you were wondering, was I'm alternative trash.

But instead I pulled my lips between my teeth to suppress the obnoxious laugh that nearly popped from my throat.

"I....don't have a specific genre I enjoy." I tried. "I kind of like weird music."

"How about you just tell me some of the bands you like." Mr. Howell pressed. I thought about it thoroughly. I didn't want to come off as an emo loving fuck! So I guess I'll start off with some artists that were more well known.

"I like Borns, The Killers, Cage the Elephant, All Time Low, Panic! at The Disco..." I named a few off. 

"Wow, that's pretty great music taste." He chuckled and had a small smile playing on his face.

"Mr. Howell, you can just say it. I know I'm emo as heck." I sighed and threw my hands on my face in defeat.

"It's okay, me too actually. I still sometimes listen to My Chemical Romance." He paused and then his face contorted in a sudden realization way. "Did I just tell you that? That is so embarrassing I never tell people that."

There was no way I could suppress the howl of laughter that rose from my chest besides covering my mouth with my hand. Mr. Howell laughed along with me, wiggling around on the piano bench. Finally we came back to our senses and settled down.

His long fingers ran along the side of the paper in his hands and he reviewed it, his mouth opened slightly as to say something but an awful ringing noise erupted in the small piano room.

"Jeez, time went by fast. That's the end of our session, I guess." He stood up and pressed the snoozing button on the alarm. "I was fantasizing getting to know you, Nova."

I stood up and grabbed my coat from the chair and walked over to him. I extended my arm to which he grabbed my palm and shook quickly. "It was a pleasure. Thank you for having me!"

"I'll walk you out." He offered. I pulled my arms through my coat and zipped it up. We walked through the wooden door and down the hallway, stepping down the stairs until we strode passed Delores at the front desk.

"I'll see you next week, Mr. Howell. Have a good night!" I said when we reached the door, shaking his hand again.

"You have a nice night too, Ms. Harrison. See you next week." His crisp voice rang as I exited the building and walked to my car.